Hera's second diary
by Rafi77
Summary: Hera is really upset about her husband's constant affairs, so she decides to disguise herself as the girl Zeus is with to feel better


Dear Diary,

Today I woke up early. Zeus wasn't there. I was still sleepy and not thinking properly so I hazily wondered where he was for a few minutes. Then I got up, got dressed and had a look around. He was nowhere to be seen. I could probably imagine where he was, but today I didn't want to think that. Can't I have one day when Zeus stays here and doesn't disappear so early in the morning? I don't want to imagine what he could be doing right now. It's too painful for me. I was angry at first, in his first few little affairs. Now I'm not in the mood to be angry. Now I feel like crying. But no, I can't just sit here now. I have to go to breakfast, and then I have to go find Zeus. I'm not hungry, but I'm sure someone must have seen him go out. I went downstairs and asked the others, "Has anyone seen Zeus today?"

Most people shook their heads. "Not since last night," said Athena.

But then Aphrodite, who was busy looking in the mirror, said, "Yeah, I saw him go out just before. I think he said not to tell you that he was going to go "play" with a little mortal girl?" Aphrodite hesitated. That was pretty stupid, I thought. But still, sometimes I'm glad that Aphrodite's a bit silly sometimes. "Did he mention her name?" I asked her.

"I believe her name was Io," Aphrodite said. "He said to tell you he's going for a walk and he'll be back later…erm…was I not supposed to say that?" Aphrodite looked around and saw that most people were laughing at her. "No, that's exactly what you should have said," I said to her and headed for the door. "Don't you want any breakfast?" Aphrodite continued.

"No," I said. "I'm going to go find Zeus."

Same old story, I thought. He goes out with some little girl, he comes back at night, acts like nothing's happened. I know a girl called Io. She's a priestess in one of her father's temples to me. I quite like her, nice girl she is. Very pretty too. Right, so obviously my husband would want her. But today I can't bear it. I feel as if my heart is breaking right now, not by jealousy this time, just by sadness. He doesn't care one bit about me. But now I've got things to do. This isn't the time to be weak. I wiped a tear away from my cheek and headed outside to see if I could see anything.

Not only could I not see anything, the whole earth was covered in fog. That was unusual, I thought. It had been a bright, sunny day just before. But I'm not stupid. I know it's Zeus trying to hide from me. He obviously doesn't want to me to see him on his little excursion. I went down to earth, started to clear the fog in my way. It was impossible even to see in front of my own nose. Nice trick, Zeus, I thought. But then I saw Zeus in the distance, walking along with Io, holding her hand. I couldn't bear to look at them. I turned away for a minute, wiping another tear from my face. But then I walked a bit closer so I could hear what they were saying. I made sure no one could see me of course, but in this fog you can't really see anything anyway. Zeus was using his usual flirting technique, but this Io seemed reluctant. Poor girl, I thought. Lots of them don't really want to, some of them just give in because Zeus is the king of the gods, and others just run away. He always catches them. Then he probably rapes them. I can tell you all of his affairs, in order too. The place, the date, everything. Even the time of day it was. I always remember them and keep track of them. I can't help it. Every time he's been unfaithful to me he breaks my heart into another piece. I just wanted to go back home and lie on my bed and cry right then, but this time I don't want to just feel sorry for myself and do nothing. What should I do, though? I can't punish the girl. Not again. They don't deserve it. Zeus and Io really seemed to be getting along. He would probably spend the whole day with her.

Then suddenly, an idea popped into my head. What if…but no, what would be the point of that? But then I thought about it again. What if I disguised myself as Io, and took her place? That was the best idea I could think of right then. That wouldn't help me. It wouldn't change anything. He would probably realise it's me anyway, and then I'm in a real mess. He would be so angry with me. I suddenly remembered all the times Zeus has been angry with me, every time we argued. I remembered that time he hung me from the mountain, years ago, because I had tries to overthrow him, tired of his endless affairs. How could I ever forget that? It was the most horrible thing that has ever happened to me, and it even happened by my own husband. No one dared to come near me. I was stuck there for a whole day and a whole night. When he finally released me he made me promise never to plot anything against him ever again. But enough of that right now. I don't want to remember that any more. I considered the possibilities. If I did like I said, and disguised myself as Io, I know I wouldn't gain anything from that, but I just want one day, one single day when he's with me, when he's doing something with me. That can never happen in real life, so I'll just have to make sure that he doesn't know that it's happening. What's the harm of that? I would have a good time. I can't just do nothing, and I was getting so desperate right now I felt this was the only thing I could do to ease the pain. And he never has to know. I could just do it for today, for one time.

I spent the next few minutes deciding on this, and then I decided that I would do it. I've got nothing to lose. I shut my eyes tight and wished myself luck, and hid myself in Io's body. I sent the real Io right back to her house, and she'll remember nothing of this, I took care of that too. Now I was in her place, and next thing I knew I found myself holding Zeus' hand, walking along the riverbank with him. He was smiling at me, or at Io or whatever. I don't know what they were talking about just before. Even just seeing him smile at me made my heart break. I even really thought for a minute that he was smiling at me and not at Io. I wanted to think that, I wanted to pretend that it was really me he was smiling at and not me in another girl's body. A dark thought entered my mind as I thought, is this what I really have to do to get him to love me? Can't he love me for who I really am?

Zeus and I walked silently for a few minutes, and he looked deeply into my eyes. That made me want to burst into tears as well. He was looking at me, or at Io, the way he used to look at me when we were young, before we had got married, when he was really and truly in love with me. We used to have such fun then. Why can't things be the same now? But I held back my tears and smiled and tried to act natural. Everything he said to me, he would not really be saying it to me. But that was the point of me doing this after all. I decided to forget about it for the time being and just enjoy the moment.

Zeus looked up at the sky, and said, "It's a beautiful day, don't you think?"

I nodded briefly and smiled. "But don't you think it would be even better without this fog? Why don't you take it away?" I asked him, now kind of angrily.

Zeus smiled at me and continued. "My dear, I'd love to, but you never know when my wife Hera wants to come down and take a look at what we're doing. No, the fog will have to stay, I'm afraid."

I looked away for a moment, quite sad again. "Are you OK?" Zeus asked and slid an arm round my waist. I snapped back to reality again. "Oh, yes I'm fine, I've just got a bit of a headache," I lied smoothly.

I didn't know what else to talk about with him. I didn't know how to answer his questions. Every word he said to me was like a little dagger, piercing my heart. But I must stay calm, I thought and not act suspicious to him at all. Then suddenly I asked him a question that I never thought I would ask, but I just was really curious to know what his reply would be. "Tell me about your wife," I told him. "What is she like? I want to know."

Zeus smiled at me for a moment and thought about it. I waited, my heart pounding. "My wife?" he said, sounding rather amused at first. "Well, let's just say, my wife can be a really cruel person when she wants to be. Whenever I do something like this there can be terrible consequences."

I got angry with him then. How dare he say I'm cruel? He's the cruel one, more cruel than I'll ever be. "Then why do you do it?" I asked, trying to sound calm. "Why do you do this kind of thing to your wife? Don't you love her?"

Zeus waited a few moments before answering. "Of course I love her," he said finally. "I love her more than anything. And she can be really nice when she wants to be. But sometimes…sometimes I really get fed up of the way she behaves. She can be so…well, let's just say that even I'm scared of her. That's why I do this."

I was a bit stunned. Zeus had said that he loved me. He had actually admitted that he loves me. I can't doubt it now. And…he was scared of me? That kind of amused me. I had never quite thought of myself as frightening. Then I carried on, asking another question that had just popped into my head. "So, you mean that if she changed her behaviour, you would want to spend more time with her and less time with other girls?"

Zeus thought about this for a minute. "Maybe. I don't know. But not if a beautiful girl like you comes along," he said and smiled at me dreamily. What he had just said made the blood rush to my head. I wanted to reveal myself right now and give him a piece of my mind. But I resisted. Stay calm, I thought. I want to enjoy myself. But I can't, not like this. This is not the right way. But I stayed calm and didn't say anything. "Are you sure you're OK?" Zeus continued. "You look a bit gloomy."

"I'm fine, don't worry about it," I said.

We carried on walking for a bit, and I decided to forget about my anger and my sadness right now and just try to enjoy myself. Afterwards Zeus conjured up some food for us and we ate lunch companionably, picnicking by the side of the river. He told me stories about things he'd done in the past, even though obviously I know all about them, I pretended to look interested as he told about how he defeated his father Kronos and became king of heaven. Lunch was so much fun; I just enjoyed being with him, with us talking without arguing for once, even if it wasn't really me. I was actually feeling happier than I had been in a very long time, even though I knew he wasn't really having fun with me, his wife, that's still how I felt. I felt that he was with me. I started to think that this was a brilliant idea to do this, even though I still felt a bit sad sometimes, when he mentioned me a few times or something like that, or the time when we had first met, but I just got over it in a few minutes. Zeus seemed to realise that whenever he mentioned my name I seemed a bit gloomy, but he didn't think anything of it and we just continued this magical day. It's amazing, what he will do with mortal women but what he never does with me. I still felt like I was cheating in a way, and still thought, why am I doing this? I was still tempted to reveal myself sometimes, but still I resisted. Zeus looked at me a bit weird sometimes, as if he suspected something, and I was actually a bit scared that he did, but he didn't mention anything so I didn't either.

We carried on talking and making jokes all the way through to a few hours afterwards. I felt as if we were young again. We used to do this a lot a long time ago. And now we had ended up here, like this. I actually have to pretend to be someone else to do this with him. I kept having these thoughts in my mind constantly but I just turned them away and didn't pay any attention to them. This was too much fun to spoil right now by negative thoughts. Even I can be positive once in a while.

Pretty soon the sun had begun to set and it started getting dark. We stopped chatting for a while and just walked along together. But then Zeus stopped me and we just stood there, looking at each other. I love him so much, I thought. I love him even more now. But there was something I realised as I looked into his eyes. He wasn't looking at me, or at Io, actually, like he looked at me (as I really was). With me, when he was with me, he gave me a gentler look, a look of love. I can see it in his eyes, that he really does love me. But when he looked at the face of this mortal girl, he didn't have that look. He looked at her with desire, that was true, but not with the same gentleness in his face that he used when he looked at me. That made me even happier.

Pretty soon Zeus started kissing me gently. It wasn't long before he lay me down on the grass. I soon forgot that I was in another girl's body at all. I felt dazed and the only thing I could feel right now was Zeus. He was kissing me all over, less gently and more passionately than before, and he was lifting my dress. With me he was gentler than he was with this girl. That's another clue that he really does love me. I know it is. But I just closed my eyes and surrendered to the moment for now. "Enough thinking right now," I thought. Zeus hadn't slept with me for so long. I had almost forgotten what it felt like.

When it was all finished I was still dazed, only feeling love and nothing else then, even though I knew it wasn't really me he was with. We lay on the soft grass for a while, but then suddenly as I daydreamed my mind snapped back to reality. I'd have to go back to Olympos at sometime. What if Zeus wanted to go back at any time soon and went back to Olympos and found that I wasn't there? I'm sure he would suspect something then. I needed to be back before him. I sat up quickly and looked at Zeus. I shook him gently. "Wake up!" I said loudly. "I have to go."

"Hmm?" Zeus said sleepily. Then he woke up properly and looked at me. "What do you mean you have to go?"

I quickly gathered my clothes and didn't answer. Zeus stood up and caught my hands. "Please stay for a little while longer," he said. "I have to go as well, but let's stay here for a bit longer."

"I can't, I…I have things to do, I have to get back home," I stuttered. "If we stay, we'll lose track of time, and I really don't want that to happen."

"Who cares if we lose track of time?" Zeus said.

"I care," I said snappily, and pulled away from him. "I really have to go. But thank you, this has been the most amazing day of my life."

I kissed him hard and then ran away as fast as I could, leaving Zeus standing there. When I had gone far enough I changed out of my disguise and back to my normal self. I stopped to catch my breath. What had I done, I thought? Do I have to tell Zeus what I did? My mind was racing as I flew back to Olympos. No, one part of me thought. Of course I shouldn't tell him what I did. That was the whole point of this. But another part said, no, I have to tell him. I have to finally tell him why I did this and how I felt for once. I went back to Olympos, into the house and in my room. I would decide whether to tell him later. As I expected, in a few seconds Zeus walked in through the door. My heart was pounding as I heard him walk towards the room. What would I tell him?

"Hi darling," he said cheerfully as he walked into the room. I expected that too. "I was, um, out. Taking a walk."

"Humph," I said. I tried to sound grumpy, like I normally was, but I couldn't stand this any longer. I couldn't stand him talking to me like that. We were having so much fun before, but now…now things will be back to normal. We would never do this again. I couldn't just carry on doing this to whichever girl he happened to be with every single day. This was just a one-time thing. I decided I have to tell him. I felt like I had no other choice, even though I knew he would be so angry with me. But maybe, on the other hand, maybe our relationship could even take a step to improving. "Zeus…can we talk?" I asked him reluctantly. Zeus looked a little surprised. He had already realised that I seemed friendlier to him than when he came back from his little excursions. "OK," he said reluctantly, sitting next to me. "What's on your mind, honey?"

"Well," I said. I took a deep breath. "The…the girl you went with today was called Io, wasn't she?" I said. I didn't know what else to say. Zeus stared at me, stunned. "I…erm…well…" Zeus stuttered. I continued slowly. "I have something to tell you," I said. "I know you were with an Io today, and the reason I know is because…because it wasn't Io, it was me," I said quickly and waited. I held my breath. What would he say now? At first he didn't seem to understand. He looked at me, very puzzled. By now tears had gathered in my eyes and were running down my cheeks. I quickly wiped them away and whispered, "I'm sorry. I just…you see I disguised myself as Io and it was really me you were with all day. Please just don't yell at me because I only did it because you never spend any time with me any more and…"

My voice trailed off and I couldn't continue. Zeus looked really shocked and just stared at me for a long time. It was a long time before he could speak. I waited to see what he would say. I still thought he would yell at me, but to my surprise he put his arms round me and hugged me tight. That really surprised me. Maybe, just maybe this was a good idea after all? I still can't actually believe I told him, but… "I'm really sorry," I said again. But then he kissed my hair and said, "Don't be sorry. I should be the one saying sorry to you. I understand why you did this, and I just want you to know that I really do love you more than anything and I promise that from now on I'll do my best to be a better husband."

I was suddenly so happy then. I thought it was like one chance in a million that he would really understand. But he did. He really did. This could be a real turning point for him and me. "I love you too," I whispered. That was all I could say. "I'll let you in on a secret," he carried on then. "I always suspected it was you. I mean, there were some signs. For one thing, only you know how to kiss me like that," he said. We both laughed then, and walked down to dinner together, hand in hand. I couldn't believe that he understood me so well. He's really not as…as immature as I thought he was. He was different. And I was also certain now that everything would all be sorted out in our relationship. Let's wait and see, shall we?


End file.
